SNAKE
BYD. H. Lawrence
SNAKE
ABOUT THE POET
David Herbert Richards Lawrence(11 September 1885 2 March 1930)
was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary
critic and painter who published asD. H. Lawrence. His collected
works, among other things, represent an extended reflection upon
the dehumanizing effects of modernity andindustrialisation. In
them, some of the issues Lawrence explores are emotional health,
vitality, spontaneity and instinct.Lawrence's opinions earned him
many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and
misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half
of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile which he
called his "savage pilgrimage. At the time of his death, his public
reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his
considerable talents.E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice,
challenged this widely held view, describing him as, "The greatest
imaginative novelist of our generation.Later, the
influentialCambridgecriticF. R. Leavischampioned both his artistic
integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's
fiction within thecanonical"great tradition" of the English
novel.
THE POEM
The poem begins about an encounter with a snake on a hot day
when the poet was in his pajamas and was going to fill his pitcher.
The snake was ahead of the poet and it was there to drink water
from the trough. When the poet came towards the Carob tree,
spreading its strange scent, he saw the snake and had to stand and
wait.The poet stood there watching the snake which slithered down
from the crack in the earthen wall and slipped over the edge of the
trough of water. The poet describes the snake as having a soft
yellow-brown belly. Lawrence stands there watching the snake as the
snake sips the water that is dripping from the troughSUMMARY
The snake stood there sipping water from the trough which was
entering his mouth straight and into its gums. The poet waited and
watched over the snake. The snake then lifted his head, looked at
the poet vaguely, flickered his two-forked tongue, stopped for a
moment and then drank a little more. The poet then goes on to
describe that very hot day of July in the city of Sicily and Etna
with the smoky volcano that aggravates the heat. The poet then
hears a voice of his education that tells him to kill the snake as
black snakes in Sicily are not poisonous as yellow snakes are. That
was a yellow bellied snake. The voice in his head provokes him by
saying that if he was a man, he would have taken a stick and killed
the snake. Finish him off is what the voice urged him to do. But
the poet confesses that he liked the snake. The poet was glad that
the snake paid a visit to his water-trough. The snake went back
into the burning bowels of the earth without thanking him.
The poet questions himself that was it cowardice that kept him
from killing the snake? Or was it his obstinacy that urged him to
talk to it? The poet contemplates if it was his humility that made
him feel so honored. A voice then challenges him that if he was not
afraid, he would have killed the snake.The poet confesses that he
was truly afraid. He was afraid that he let the dangerous snake to
go and feelings of honoUr that the snake sought the poets
hospitality.The poet describes the pacified snake in these lines
who lifted his head, drank water as if he was drunken state,
flickered his tongue, licked his lips and looked around like god
and slowly turned his head. After quenching his thirst, the snake
climbed back the wall and disappeared into the earth.
As the snake was slithering back into the hole, the poet
suddenly felt a sense of protest and horror and hastily he puts
down his pitcher, picks up a log and hurls at the water trough
where the snake was stranded.The snake was unhurt. The poet saw its
slow retreating body of the snake, disappearing into the hole from
where it once appeared. The poet regrets for his foolish act of
trying to kill the snake. For a moment, his emotions were different
and he hated himself and the voices that urged him to do so. He
despised the accursed human education.The poet thinks of the
albatross and wishes that the snake would visit him again
The snake seemed like a king to the poet, a king in exile and
the one who lost his crown waiting to be crowned again. The poet
regrets that he missed to spend time with one of the lords of life.
He is left with something to expatiate and that is his
pettiness.
THANK YOUBYMRINAL DWIVEDI
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